In the strict centre of serbian capital, under the biggest Belgrade bridge Gazela there is a huge slum settelment called Cardboard city (ser. Karton siti). Nearly one thousand Roma people, refugees from south Serbia and Kosovo live here in the houses built from cardboard or some other non-building materials, like plywood or nylon bags. They don’t have running water, sewage and electricity. Among them there is about 300 children which don’t have any perspectives and chances for better future.
Michal Kowalski / Babel Images
click to see original feature at Babel Images
In fact they do have electricity (if you ever went inside of their houses you’d know), only it’s illegal – not officially registered or payed in any way. The first thing they do when they make a new “house” is to bring in a cable.
Second, saying that they don’t have any perspectives and chances for better future is highly pessimistic and not really true. Many of them have social security, a lot of them go to schools. It’s not like they will have a glamorous life, but there certanly is, at least some perspective.
I strongly believe that we, as photographers, can have some influence into their future. If we’d try to see beyond the cliche naratives of poor, dirty Roma who lack any perspectives or hope for a better future, maybe those who look at our photographs would think the same. And maybe that, in a strong conjuction with other (non-)governmental aid, could create a better environment for Roma to grow and develop in. But representing them like this equals to taking that hope and perspective away from them.
Speaking of Mr. Michal’s photographs, I can just say they’re awful. No offense, but they totally miss the atmosphere of Gazela camp, which was a real community. Maybe it’s just me, but I find them to completely lack contrast (bad b&w conversion?) which is nothing compared to vignette. I thought nobody uses that anymore.
If you’d like to see some photographs of Roma from Belgrade, I’d recommend Sanja Knežević and Matt Lutton.
UPDATE:
Seems like Mr. Michal Kowalski “reached the final of Amnesty International competition Human Rights in Lens and will be shown on post-competition exhibition.” Incredible. Well done.
http://www.babelimages.com/?p=325
Though I’m a bit confused, the image shown at the link above is a night-shot of the camp, in color. Is it a part of the same series? (and why did yellow color turn blue?)
